2 . The true purpose of a business, Peter Drucker said, is to create and keep customers. “Customer value” has several definitions. I use the ______ to mean the total lifetime value of a company’s customer base. Companies can increase this value by ______ more customers, earning more business from existing ones, keeping them longer, making their experience simpler through digital improvements and so on. ______ leaders have long understood the importance of concentrating on customer value rather than pursuing short-term profits or quarterly earnings, and they’ve become enduring customer loyalty leaders in the process. It’s worth noting that a number of loyalty-leading companies are able to ______ shareholder pressure, or avoid it altogether, because they are founder-led, customer-owned, or not publicly traded.

Companies can ______ customer value in a variety of ways: To increase ______, enterprise software companies sometimes charge corporate customers change fees that can raise the total cost of ownership to as much as three times the original price. To reduce operating costs, restaurant chains sometimes ______ frozen and precooked ingredients in place of fresh and made-to-order food. The resulting profits may look good on the income statement. Such strategies may even lead to short-term earnings growth. But they also ______ potential customers and encourage disloyalty.

Given the importance of customer value, leaders should track it as much as they track other key assets (资产), such as buildings, machinery, and marketable securities. They also should reveal it in their quarterly and annual earnings releases so that investors can make ______ judgments about company performance and how it compares with that of industry peers. But most companies ________believe that measuring customer value is too difficult or costly. They continue to rely on a centuries-old accounting tradition that emphasizes physical and financial assets, and neither income statements nor balance sheets offer much ______ into the value of a company’s customers.

As investors wake up to the importance of customer value, however, many growth-stage companies now direct investors’ attention to ______ in growing the value of their customer base. Some public companies increasingly report various types of customer value metrics (指标). One of the UK’s top energy suppliers E.ON, ______, reports year-over-year customer counts in its financial report. “As a customer-focused company,” E.ON noted, “we see customer value as crucial to our success.”

This is a start, but because there are no customer-value reporting standards or requirements, investors still have a(n) ______ picture. The minority of companies that do provide customer value information decide for themselves what to disclose. ______, firms may calculate customer metrics differently or change them to tell a desired story, or simply stop reporting them if they fail to go with the company’s preferred narrative.

1.

A．item

B．version

C．term

D．definition

2.

A．persuading

B．consulting

C．acquiring

D．inspecting

3.

A．Considerate

B．Visionary

C．Determined

D．Powerful

4.

A．resist

B．relieve

C．intensify

D．maintain

5.

A．raise

B．adopt

C．calculate

D．destroy

6.

A．income

B．experience

C．productivity

D．demand

7.

A．separate

B．substitute

C．forbid

D．combine

8.

A．appeal to

B．rely on

C．put down

D．scare off

9.

A．informed

B．subjective

C．definitive

D．independent

10.

A．fully

B．hardly

C．readily

D．wrongly

11.

A．suspicion

B．extension

C．literacy

D．visibility

12.

A．sacrifice

B．success

C．prejudice

D．expense

13.

A．as a result

B．for example

C．on the contrary

D．in general

14.

A．incomplete

B．depressing

C．convincing

D．vivid

15.

A．Instead

B．Further

C．Otherwise

D．Therefore

3 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once.     Note that there is one word more than you need.

Although many companies offer tuition repayment, most companies only repay employees for classes that are     1     to their position. This is a very limiting policy. A company that repays employees for all college credit courses—whether job related or not—offers a service not only to the employees, but to the entire company.

One good reason for giving employees     2     tuition repayment is that it shows the company’s commitment to its employees. In today’s economy, where job security is a thing of the past and employees feel more and more expendable, it is important for a company to     3     to its employees that it cares. The best way to do this is with concrete     4     in them. In turn, this commitment to the betterment of company employees will create greater employee     5    . A company that puts out funds to pay for the education of its employees will get its money     6     by having employees stay with the company longer. It will reduce employee turnover, because even employees who don’t take advantage of the tuition repayment program will be more loyal to their company just knowing that their company cares     7     to pay for their education. Most importantly, the company that has an unrestricted tuition repayment program will have higher quality employees. Although these companies do indeed run the risk of losing money on employees who go on to another job in a different company as soon as they get their     8    , more often than not, the employee will stay with the company.

And even if employees do leave after graduation, it generally takes several years to complete any degree program. Thus, even if the employee leaves upon graduating, throughout those years, the employer will have a more sophisticated, more intelligent, and therefore more valuable and productive employee. And, if the employee stays, that education will     9     benefit the company: Not only is the employee more educated, but now that employee can be     10     so the company doesn’t have to fill a high-level vacancy from the outside. Open positions can be filled by people who already know the company well. Though unconditional tuition repayment requires a significant investment on the employer’s part, it is perhaps one of the wisest investments a company can make.